Originally Posted by GingerJohn;13484542
The power companies already know all this, they have to buy the power from the grid and sell it to you. They know when peak usage is from the amount of electricity you actually consume which is a better indication than when your lights are on; lighting takes up very little power compared to running an electric shower, immersion heater or AC unit.

Or they can fit radio meters (we used to have one in our place in the UK) which can record usage data and upload it in order to determine your bill.

You know, it never even entered my mind how easy it would be to get that data for a power company. Just got off a long shift, I'm not thinking too straight. I really don't see anything bad they could do with it then. I still stand by my last sentence though